Article:

Established in 1923, Turkish Republic has mostly been ruled around a major ideal goal for 90 years: “reaching to the level of contemporary civilizations”. As this motto indicates, the ideal goal for the nation has been set around Western civilizations: being like modern Western countries, living Western lifestyles, wearing Western clothing, etc. In fact, in this geography modernization and Westernization ideal can be dated back to late 19th century. Starting from Ottoman Empire, these are seen as path to a peak point to be reached for becoming a developed and civilized country. However, society which has not completed industrialization, could not internalized modernization totally and therefore mostly adopted the outcomes of it from West. Thus, the modernization project, especially that are about daily life are realized over the constructed identity of women. They are regarded as the face value of a ‘modern’ country. In this regard, this paper tries to trace the created ‘modern Turkish woman’ identity embedded in Turkey’s history, and link this identity to today’s women by subjecting two white goods commercials, one from 80s and one from 2000s.